32. A BURDEN IMPOSED

They climbed out of the sunshine into the coolness of the Keep's vestibule. The doors to the Great Hall were open. At the far end, she could see the coffin--the mort kist, as Goodie would call it, and a figure--no two figures--in Healers' robes bent over it.

They walked slowly towards the bier, their footfalls echoing in the big room. One figure straightened up. Healer Doohan, hands cupped together at her waist, observing the vital signs of the bereaved without seeming to do so.

"Mistress McGonagall, we are all so very sorry..." Minerva's small, sad smile and nod stopped her. "Have you met Magus Kirk, your mother's Healer?"

The other woman turned away from the coffin and looked at her now, her gaze enigmatic. Minerva remembered her from when her mother arrived home on the carpet, back in August. Healer Kirk was taller than Brianag Doohan, with dreamy, protruding eyes in a gaunt unlined face, and short, almost colorless hair. "Iphigenia's daughter." Her voice was flat. "You've grown tall since we last met. You look a deal like her."

Minerva remembered. This was the witch who didn't want the truth told to her mother. "Where is she?"

The bulbous eyes, which had seemed unfocussed at first, turned wary. "Resting--upstairs. You're aware of her state?"

"Aunt Donnie told me. How is she?"

"She remembers nothing at all of her life, but, wonder of wonders, she still retains her magical abilities. You understand the importance of discretion at this time." Not a question. To Minerva, it sounded like a command.

"Not entirely, no."

The bland voice sharpened. "Know this, Minerva McGonagall. Your mother's mental health is poised on a knife's edge. Any upset may throw her into permanent, gibbering oblivion."

"How can you know that?"

"I've studied many cases like hers. For many years, the magic of self-hatred worked its way into her core like a slow-acting venom. Her psyche is grievously injured, flayed skin whose wounds were reopened daily, throughout those twelve years. It must have time--not to heal--but to allow experience to slough off the scar tissue and let new, healthy memories grow in its place."

"How--how long?"

"There's no knowing. A lifetime, perhaps."

A lifetime. Minerva stifled a groan. "How can you be so sure? Have you ever actually treated such a case? Perhaps--perhaps the truth is what she really needs."

Brianag Doohan interrupted their conversation, which was showing signs, at least on Minerva's side, of deteriorating into the tone and intent of a Howler. "You must not speak that way, Mistress. Magus Kirk is pre-eminent in her field--"

"It's all right, Brianag." Healer Kirk's voice was soft now. "Child, I got to know your mother well during her treatment. She is a very special, very gifted witch. I consider her not only a patient, but a friend. You must trust that I know what is best for her. I want you to promise that you will do as I ask."

Minerva set her jaw. "And if I will not promise?"

"Minerva--" Donnie caught her niece's arm, but she would not be turned aside. Her eyes bored into Healer Kirk's.

The Healer drew herself up and matched the younger witch's stare. "I will do what I must to protect her. But there will be no harm done if you promise that you will not tell your mother about her past."

"You cannot stop me."

The Healer took a step towards her, her voice still calm, but raised slightly, as if she didn't believe Minerva had heard her. "You will not tell your mother about her past."

"You should listen to her, Mistress," said Brianag Doohan. "She has your mother's best interests at heart."

"And you think I do not? Anyway, how do we know her diagnosis is correct?"

"Because--"

But she was silenced by the raised hand of Healer Kirk who, never taking her eyes from Minerva's, took a breath and spoke more slowly, enunciating each word, as if speaking to a small child. "You...will...not..."

"I will do what I think best."

"...tell...your...mother...

"Aye, my mother, not yours."

"...about...her...past."

Minerva was not cowed. She was not a child, not any more. "And if I do speak to her?"

Healer Kirk gave her a brief smile. "You will find yourself unable to make a coherent explanation." With that, she walked swiftly across the hall and out into the vestibule. Minerva just stared at her, her mouth open. She had half a mind to follow the old hag, to give her a real piece of her mind.

As if she sensed Minerva's intentions, Donnie stepped in front of her. "You are upset, dearie, but you should not have spoken that way."

"I know, but everyone's been so--" She didn't finish the sentence. She was suddenly ashamed of her loss of control, but she hated being treated like an ignorant witchling.

Casting about for a change of subject, she looked into the coffin. What she saw did nothing to soothe her agitation. She recognized her father by the fine lawn shirt and coatee, the formal kilt, the delicately tooled sporran he had worn the night of the Reckoning, by his wiry hair tamed finally and forever into a soft reddish aureole about his face. But the face itself was like a bad, bland portrait. And its dimensions were all wrong, the chin weak, the brow shortened, the lips not so generously full as she remembered them. She wanted to touch it, but something held her back, a faint shimmer in the air between them like a loch ruffled by a puff of breeze.

"Is that a Glamour over him?"

"Yes," said Brianag Doohan. "My Transfiguration's not so good. Healer Kirk and your aunt helped with the features. I hope it's all right."

Minerva's mouth quirked into a sardonic grin. Magus Kirk might be quite the Healer, but her artistic abilities left much to be desired. "It's...not permanent, right?"

"Oh, don't worry," said Donnie. "It'll last as long as we need it to."

"Does he look so very bad?"

"His back bore the brunt of the cave-in," said Healer Doohan. "One side of his face is...maimed. Both arms were pulverized, worse than yours were when you fell off that battlement. He probably tried to shield his head with them. That's the only reason the face doesn't look even worse than it does. And the rest of him is..." She paused, gauging how much she should say, but Minerva's features did not waver.

"Can I see him as he is?"

"Are you sure you want to? It might be better to remember him as he was."

"I need to."

"All right." Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the Healer exchanging a glance with her aunt. Now the voice was patient, humoring. "Just keep in mind that he's gone from this body. He can't suffer any more."

"I know. Go ahead. Remove it. I'll be all right."

Healer Doohan waved her wand over the coffin and the Glamour lifted, like a mist, sparkled, then diffused in the light of the clerestory windows. There was her father, his real skin, excoriated, raw-red, and bruised-black, but tenderly cleansed--by whom? Goodie? Donnie?-- of the stones and grit that must have been driven into it as the mountain fell on him. It would have been Ma's job to minister to his poor broken body, had she been...aware.

His jaw was dislocated and his mouth hung awkwardly open. His forehead looked as if a troll had stove it in with a cudgel. One cheek had a Galleon-sized hole in it, through which she could see glints of something. Tooth shards probably. An eyelid was torn and sunken. And the whole head was warped, like an overripe pumpkin sagging in the heat of the sun. She glanced at the rest of the body. The knuckles of the hand she could see were split and showed the whiteness of bone. The arm crooked awkwardly at his side, and there was a seepage of serum through the shirt, which lay concave on a chest once burly and heaving with life.

"Could I have a moment alone with him?"

"Certainly. I'll be in the undercroft if you need me."

Donnie also breathed a final word of encouragement and retreated to the office to receive condolences from the owls flocking into the Owlery. Minerva could hear them scuffling and mewing in the tower overhead. She concentrated on the figure in the bier. No, this was not her father. He had gone on to another life, to create his inventions with starfire and the dust of planets, to Beat meteors and Seek comets in a Quidditch game spanning the universe. She would not again feel the squeeze of those affectionate arms, relish the booming, infectious laugh, tremble at the onset of a stern lecture.

Had he suffered in the cataclysm? There was nothing in the damaged visage to indicate it, no rictus-quirk of pain at an undamaged corner of the mouth, no worn-down, bloodied fingertips, which might have betrayed a last-ditch struggle to escape the rocks that pinned him. One thing was sure: he had died as he had lived: impulsive, righteous, brave.

She retraced in her mind the events that led to the fatal decision, information she had extracted from her aunt--not without pain to both of them--during their walk. They'd met up with Inachus Filch on the way and he filled in some of the gaps in Donnie's story.

Aunt Charlamaine had been after Da for months to tear down that 'execrable display' at the front gate. They'd had words about it the week before. Hearing raised voices, Donnie had joined them and questioned him about it. But to her at least he gave a coherent explanation.

"That evil wizard, whoever it is, is still out there somewhere. He's got to come back someday to check on his little spawn. I've put a spell of my own on those bones. Anyone disturbs them, I shall know, and then I'll have the bugger. Aye, I'll have him."

And the magical alarm had rung in Da's brain early this morning. He followed tracks and a trail of small bones up the road, towards the mountains. Filch, on his way to work, saw him racing along like a hound on the scent and went to back him up.

He caught him at the entrance to the mine and Da explained his reasoning in quick clipped sentences as he lit his wand. He had the fellow trapped now. It was no beast. The footprints were human. It was just the two of them. He'd make him pay, and pay dearly, for the Mistress's pain. Filch followed him inside, though gingerly. He'd never before been inside the mine. He was an outdoorsman who could barely tolerate sleeping under a roof. The mine was incredibly dark and close and as such, oppressive to his spirit.

Da soon left him behind, but Inachus could hear the Master's footsteps ahead, then an exclamation and a roar as of some crazed animal. It might have been Da making that sound, finally confronting, as he thought, Ma's tormentor, though Filch thought not. Now there were two sets of footfalls--unless one was an echo--and the sound of blasting. He hurried onward, although stones were now dropping out of the roof, and a smell of sulfur filled the air. He heard a final booming noise, and a cloud of dust and stones blew at him out of the dark. He was nearly suffocated in the miasma, but he recovered and staggered on to confront a wall of loose rubble. He was able to clear away the smaller boulders with magic, but was afraid to try a Blasting Spell, in case it would do further harm to the Laird.

He sought out Charlamine first as the mine's operator. She it was who'd summoned the Muggle workmen to go in with pickaxes and shovels, along with two wizard foremen to supervise and to use judicious magic to shore up the walls and ceiling. Cuthbert himself was away on the continent--on business it seemed. It took all the morning to dig out the bodies, the Master's first, and close by, a curious wonder to the men, a long, lean silver-furred creature, which Filch tentatively identified as a yeti, bones of the Pogrebin still in its mouth. It had simply been hungry for the marrow. But where it had come from, no one knew.

A wave of guilt smote Minerva. Indeed she should have told someone the identity of the creature that had chased her in the woods last summer, once she had the knowledge of its origin from Petey's lips. They might have sent out a search party to capture it, and Da would be alive today. But self-recrimination was bootless. Da and Goodie both taught her that. Learn from your errors and move on. But what an error! How could she ever forget this?

She knelt by the bier. "I'm sorry, Da, for everything," she whispered huskily. She could almost hear his response: "It's all right, dearie. We all make mistakes--even me." It made her smile a moment at the thought of his big hand on her shoulder, looking down at her with mischievous, twinkling eyes. And she felt at peace for the first time that day. She'd honor his memory by staying dry-eyed and in command to comfort his sisters and the many shocked friends who would come to the wake tonight.

Then she stared at the ruined features. The people who come tonight, she thought, they deserve to see my father as he was, not this tragic remainder or some cosmetic freak. She knew what she had to do. Restore his face. And she could use Transfiguration to do it, specifically that simple Surface Softening spell. Or could she?

Steady now, you're good at this, she convinced herself as she slipped her wand out of her robe pocket. Tops in your class. It sounded like Da speaking to her again in her mind, or was it a memory of something he might have said with that unshakeable pride in his 'bairnie-girl'? I know, Da, she thought back, but what if I make a mistake? You could end up with the head of a Sphinx or something. Naw, naw, said the voice, Better that than a fuzzy Glamour that could be mistaken for any of a hundred Muggle-types. Just make sure I don't end up looking like a slobbering cave troll. That would give a certain branch of the family a bit too much satisfaction.

She waved away the intruding thoughts. It would take all her concentration to do this--and a powerful memory of her father as she had known him. She, like Healer Kirk, was certainly no artist.

She chanted softly, rhythmically, "Attenuo, attenuo, attenuo, attenuo...".The flesh of Da's face softened and sagged. She concentrated first on the lacerated eyelid, which was the most hideous injury. She bent and breathed ever so gently into the flattened eye and it plumped up, blue again, and filled the socket. She drew the ragged edges of the eyelid together, and smoothed them with her wand. Then "Klikitat", and the structure stabilized. Still chanting, she ran her free hand along the dislocated cheek and jaw, felt for and loosened bone fragments. These she pieced together, working them under the skin, straightened and hardened each newly re-formed process by running her wand tip over them with a series of imperious Klikitats! Then she rolled the tip of her wand over the cheek, still rough with splinters of rock and turned it smooth and pink. She pulled at the hair over the crumpled forehead and it expanded into the broad brow she remembered, though peaceful now, and unlined, except for a deep burn mark, possibly from a ricochet. This lightened as her wand touched it. She rearranged the bruised lips to the beloved half-smile, restored the crumbled teeth under them to their brose-stained straightness.

She placed an arm under her father's back and arched it a bit. Here she hesitated, so close to him. She ached for him to throw his arms about her just one more time, to give her a last crushing bear hug. Dear Da, she cried inside, I hope you didn't hurt too much. I hope this doesn't hurt you now. Then she coaxed his mouth open and breathed deeply into his chest, making it swell. She followed the lines of fractured, misaligned ribs, kneaded them into place in their sheathing. She completed the cant with one final "Klikitat" and the body seemed to settle a little deeper into its bedding, as though finally at rest.

Her mother might have done this, cleansed his face, bathed his limbs, clothed her man for his final journey. But she could not--or would not. Were there really things inside her that cowered, afraid to come out, stoppered-up memories too cruel to bear? Yet she still remembered her magic. There were, Minerva supposed, always some things even the most deleterious spell could not wipe out. And what, she wondered peripherally, was that special talent of her mother's of which Healer Kirk spoke? Everyone had one, from Billy Bones to Dumbledore. Was it Transfiguration perhaps? It didn't matter. They were not related--not any more.

She sensed someone behind her.

"What are you doing, my girl?" It was Donnie. She glanced at the casket and did a double-take. "Oh, I say. Did you do that? It's miraculous."

Minerva gave her a wan smile.

"It was very brave of you," continued her aunt, giving her a bracing hug. "That Glamour was rather awful, wasn't it?" I did pretty well on my Transfiguration N.E.W.T., but I've never been good at the details. My first teakettle-to-tortoise transformation ended up looking like a garden glove with a shell. And I must confess they never taught anything like that..." She nodded at the coffin. "...when I was at Hogwarts. Speaking of which, the rest of your luggage has arrived. Where do you want it to go? Your room?"

Minerva followed her into the office. There was her trunk and her withywand broomstick...and Da's last project, the Dreadnought. "I'll take care of them, Donnie. My Leviosa's pretty good now."

~*~

Minerva dressed in a black velvet coatee and a long black skirt for the wake, with a plain white blouse and a sash in the McGonagall plaid draped over her left shoulder. She stood at the head of the bier with her aunts strung out next to her. Aunt Charlamaine's face was an obvious mask, heavily cosmetic-charmed, undoubtedly hiding a blotchy complexion and eyes bloodshot with sleeplessness. Perhaps her aunt was reproaching herself for all the criticism she'd laid on her brother over the years. Minerva examined her own feelings and surprisingly found no hint of smugness in them, only a numb indulgence grown out of emotional anomie.

They greeted the first visitors. Charlamaine already sounded weary and at the end of her tether. The twins, their faces glazed with tears, clung to each other as if terrified of the pressing throng. Bobbie was used to crowds pressing in, begging autographs. She easily handled distraught fans who remembered her and her father on the pitch. Gerry, with Argus, now about eight, in full Highland regalia fidgeting at her side, just nodded and smiled her empathy and thanks. More than one man knelt down and chucked her son under the chin, declaring that he might step into his uncle's shoes some day. Donnie murmured grateful nothings, clasped neighbors' hands, motioned them towards the tables of food and drink. Minerva imitated her as best she could, trying to stave off the feelings crowding in on that emptiness that had kept her steady for most of the day.

Mourners straggled past the bier in an endless line: townspeople, servants, farmhands, miners, fellow inventors--including Horton and Keitch's entire Comet assembly team--former teammates and fans. Some of the Magpies wept openly at the sight of their old mate's corpse, others just nodded, somber and silent. Goodie Gudgeon, recovered somewhat and bolstered with three fingers of whisky, remarked that the Master had the luck of the Irish, caught in a landslide that should have crushed him to a pulp, and coming out of it looking like he did the day his father handed him the keys to the Keep. It was a miracle, it was.

There was a delegation from the school, led by Headmaster Dippet, gentlemages, including Lord and Lady Macnair and their sons, the Gwynns, Macmillans, Sykes, and Yorkes. Giggie Gwynn hugged Minerva extra long and hard, her small, sharp face shining with rheumy sadness. Her straw-colored hair stuck out every which way, as if she had been trying to pull it out. "Come to us, 'Nerva," she whispered hoarsely as she clung desperately to her friend, her best friend. "Mama says there'll be a bed for you as long as you like--if this gets to be moo touch."

All the natives made soft obeisances to Minerva as the new Lord of Conghaill, and many well-wishers asked after her poor mother. Every word was like a red-hot needle stabbing her heart. She was beginning to loathe this place; she wanted nothing more to do with the farm, with the Keep. Her mother had retired early to her chamber upstairs, the one she occupied as Iffie Wallace, a stranger who did not want to intrude on the family's sadness, dry-eyed, not mourning the husband she did not remember, not comforting the daughter she did not recognize. None of the visitors knew the true story; they thought her prostrate with grief.

Cuthbert Campbell and his father came forward to offer condolences. Cuthbert looked deeply shocked as he took Minerva's hand. She felt a pang of guilt. They really were sad, these people she had always thought of as the Enemy. "It--it's a sorry thing--that it happened--in the mine," he stammered. Minerva heard a gasp behind her. Aunt Charlamaine was now close to collapse, weeping uncontrollably, and had to be led away from the receiving line by her husband.

As Minerva watched them go, she glimpsed a tall figure at the Hall doors, and became for an instant, calmer, more composed than she had felt all evening. His auburn hair shone in the torchlight. His black traveling cloak flowed out over a plum-colored velvet suit. As he made to remove the cloak, his suit jacket swung wide, showing a wand stuck in his belt, like Rowdie Flynn's dirk, ready to hand. His thick-heeled travel-stained boots clashed discreetly with his civilized, Muggle-like attire. They looked to be made of green dragonhide, the footwear of a hardy adventurer. But he seemed weary and sad, beyond the sadness of this tragic event, as if he had recently faced an enemy far worse than Death.

She excused herself and walked towards him, as if she had been awaiting his arrival, although she'd had no thought of him, none at all, throughout the funeral preparations. She hadn't even remarked his absence from the Hogwarts contingent, though she remembered now Headmaster Dippet saying something about his being away on some business involving a new student. They met in the middle of the hall. And he looked into her eyes as if he wished to draw the pain out of them into his own body. His own eyes, she saw, were a deep, piercing blue. She had never seen such eyes, fierce with righteousness and justice, yet softened by compassion. He would, she knew, shoulder any burden of any student desperately needy of counsel, of comfort, as she was now.

"My dear child, I am so very sorry..." His breathing seemed labored.

"Th-thank you for coming, Sir...you look tired..."

"It is nothing...a mere problem of logistics...London to Perthshire in fifteen minutes...fighting a stubborn head wind...I shall be fine in a moment...but you, Minerva...your poor father...I had such great respect..."

"I know, I know," she whispered, the tears running freely down her face. The thought of her teacher racing on his broom to be with her, put her in mind of her father, careering about high above the Keep on his own home-made stick, showing her the moves that made him famous...

Dumbledore hesitated, seeming at a loss as to what to do at first, perhaps thinking to pat her on the shoulder as he had once before. But finally he engulfed her in a fatherly embrace, there in the middle of that somber gathering. She rested her cheek against his chest, and heard again that ineffable, joyous bird-song, as if it was coming from within him, accompanied softly by the beat of his heart. She allowed her heart to come into sympathetic reverberation with his, and it soothed and strengthened her. After a moment, she remembered where she was, who she was, and pulled back. She knew they would talk at length about everything, but not yet, not until her duty was done. She bowed to her teacher and turned back to the receiving line.

~*~

After the last mourner was dealt with and everyone had settled in with food and drink, comforting each other and honoring the deceased with memories shared, Minerva and her teacher met in the parlor off the vestibule and sat together on a straight-backed sofa. He took out a large handkerchief and dabbed gently at her eyes, which were threatening to fill up again. Minerva, disarmed by his gesture of affection, forgot her own suffering for the moment.

"How are you feeling, sir? You looked rather winded when you came in."

"Oh that. Bit of a long trip. The Headmaster asked me to meet with a new student--a boy, Muggle-born, and unacquainted with our ways. A bit of shepherding you know. It's a duty he spreads about the staff, and not an onerous one--usually." He stared off into space, looking wearier than ever.

"Let me get you something to drink, sir."

"I could do with a dram of your fine whisky. But don't trouble yourself."

He drew out his wand and accioed a glass and a bottle of Auld Hielander from a nearby table. But his hand trembled as he tried to open the bottle. Minerva took it from him gently, poured and passed.

"Are you sure you are all right, sir?"

He took a sip of his drink, rolled it around in his mouth, swallowed, and sighed. "Yes, Minerva, I am. Though not as young--or hardened--as I used to be, it would seem."

"Hardened, sir? You are never hard."

"Sometimes I think I've lived too long, seen too much. Muggles are lucky, you know. They get what--Three score and ten years at most? And at that age, we wizards have only scratched the surface of our existence. We see so much more, experience highs and lows they never come close to. It can be very--wearing."

"This student you saw--will he be coming to Hogwarts this year?

"Yes. As I said, he's Muggle-born and an orphan to boot. We had quite a few orphans in the last war. Back then, I helped arrange adoptions for some of the poor mites. Did a bit of interviewing and counselling. Professor Dippet felt that my experience would make me an ideal first contact for this particular young--wizard." He downed the rest of his whisky, which would ordinarily be considered a grave insult to its mellowness and fine aging, but Minerva could see that her teacher was not himself. It was almost as if he were trying to wash away some bitter taste in his mouth. But he recovered quickly and murmured, "Tell me, how are you feeling?"

Minerva came straight to the heart of her grief.

"My mother doesn't remember my father...or me."

The statement, so baldly rendered, put him at a loss. "How can that be?"

Minerva told him everything: her mother's suicide attempt on the parapet, her head striking the pavement, the nature of the Geas, the amnesia, and Healer Kirke's interdiction.

He shook his head slowly. "You have been through a great deal for one so young."

"It doesn't matter." She was silent for a moment, governing herself, then whispered, "Oh, Professor, I do miss him so."

"And your mother?"

Her voice rose uncontrollably. "What do you mean?"

"You must have some feeling for her."

She could not bring herself to lie. "I hate her for not remembering, for making me face all this...alone."

Somehow her professor managed not to look shocked or disapproving at her confession. His words were calm. "She endured a great deal as well. Mountains of opprobrium. A Geas can be a terrible thing, relentless, like a permanent Cruciatus...Sometimes the mind has to find a refuge in forgetfulness."

"But why couldn't she have held out against it...just a little while longer?"

"The spirit has its limits."

She groaned and clutched at her head with splayed fingers. "I know, but I can't help feeling angry..."

"And cheated perhaps--and bitter."

She nodded reluctantly. The words made her out to be a mean, ungrateful child, but she knew they described her feelings perfectly at that moment.

"Do you still want to know what happened to your grandfather? To clear your mother's name?"

"I don't care about that anymore. Nothing matters to me, not even the farm."

"The truth always matters."

She bowed her head, squeezing her eyes shut, not to hold back tears, but to shut out light and pain and memory. "Help me, Professor. I don't know what to do."

He drew her hands up from her lap and warmed them in his own. The blue eyes searched, caressed her face, just like a mother's loving touch. "Let us go back inside. I'll stay, for as long as you need me here."